


science and faith

by failsafe



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Season/Series 01, Whedoned, not exactly Jossed I guess but whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 04:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8356255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/failsafe/pseuds/failsafe
Summary: Jemma's thoughts after she and Fitz are rescued. (Immediately Post-S1.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Found this in my tumblr 'mine' tag. It was written for a FitzSimmons week something-or-other before S2 had come out, I think. Written in like July 2014, I guess. S2 kind of had this totally not be Jemma's reaction unless it changed later? But this was what I anticipated and wanted initially. I haven't kept up with AOS since sometime in S2 because I'm lazy. All lowercase for stylistic~ reasons.

there are things jemma knows. she knows how long the brain can go without oxygen before it dies and before it sustains permanent damage. she knows that he likely exists in a state between the two.

she knows she will probably never get to ask him.

 

she goes through the questions in her mind sometimes anyway. does he remember his name? “do you remember mine?” does he remember that he hates ‘leopold’ and likes just 'fitz’? will it be the other way around?

the presumption that he’ll come back often supersedes the knowledge that he won’t. of course he won’t. it’s been too long. so long that his chances have stopped dipping day by day and have instead leveled out into a straight line that tries for forever and makes it not mean anything.

she thinks he’ll come back backward.

in some small way, she does, too. their new headquarters come with a bathroom with a long, burnished vanity two two sinks to either side. this just in her part of the facility, the ghost of a place she’s been before. she feels her hipbones meet the edge of the vanity, first right and then left. the swaying motion reminds her of balance–oversimplification that it is, she can’t help thinking of right brain and left brain. she can’t decide which she is. she can’t remember which side he’d take if he were here, standing, so she takes the middle and cranes her neck until it cramps.

it’s two and a half weeks when skye notices and comes to take up occupancy of the right side of the sink. jemma’s eyes burn because she’s grateful for someone she loves brushing their teeth in her presence. it’s so small, and she’s forgotten already.

jemma knows that she’s got to begin the process of getting on with things. some days, she stays out of fitz’s room entirely. there are things she needs to do, needs to learn. on those days, by the end of them, she’s looking at his medical records, looking for some impossible thing.

there are things jemma doesn’t mean to believe. she thinks she ought to know better than to rely on wishful thinking, but it’s impossible not to hope when she’s alone in a room with the sound of his breathing. she thinks she hears the occasional deepening irregularity in it, but everything stays the same. she wonders if that’s force of memory. she looks at monitors, but then decides to try and forget about them. time seems to stretch outward, some days.

his fingernails grow, and it seems like life returning more than all the other vital signs combined. she finds herself beside him on the white bed, legs curled and tucked and bent at the knees. she lays his fingers steady and warm across the top of her thigh. the file is round and soft and pale pink and works the nails each time back into shining half-moons. while she works she tells him stories. she runs out of fairy tales that seem tasteful to tell pretty quickly, so she starts telling him the plots of terrible films she’s seen. some of them she’s seen skye. she’s discreet when skye comes into the room, but she doesn’t stop speaking once she manages to start. she’s careful not to correct any of the plot holes in her mind, telling them earnestly and in all their glory. she doesn’t let on, but she thinks that one day one of them will be enough to rise him from his slumber out of sheer, indignant annoyance.

time stretches out for her when she wants it to. it doesn’t speed up no matter how much she pleads. but the days never slow. soon, it’s nearly the day they met. she remembers and she knows–so does he. he did know, she knows he did. she believes he does. her fingers become altogether more familiar with his hands, and they’re soft as they’ve ever been. she traces his fingers over numbers on a desktop calendar with a new page for each day. she turns them over, more and more impatiently, until she sees that day in black and white. she teaches him the feeling of it because it’s all they have now–feeling because knowing was gone a long time ago.

she knows there is nothing more she can do. she doesn’t know. he breathes. and skye tells her sometimes, in little ways, in big ways, aloud, that it’s alright to believe. just a little.  



End file.
